


Coffee vs Tea

by Wandamaixmoff



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre-Relationship, Sam Wilson is a national treasure, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Wanda Maximoff Needs a Hug, they hug each other so it's okay, why do i always end up writing angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-29 20:24:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12092754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wandamaixmoff/pseuds/Wandamaixmoff
Summary: Wanda and Steve both prefer tea to coffee, and Sam simultaneously disapproves and approves.





	Coffee vs Tea

**Author's Note:**

> pls excuse the title I didn't know what to call it so

“Your friend and my father – they were both victims. If I can help one of them find peace…” T’Challa trails off, eyes distant.

_-the explosion, holding his dead father, overwhelming grief, a hollowness in his chest-_

“You know, if they find out he’s here, they’ll come for him,” Steve says quietly.

_-relief, yet an unbridled pain to have Bucky back, only to lose him again, but he understands, he understands, he understands-_

“Let them try.”

* * *

 

Wanda stares out at the misty Wakandan forest outside her window and places her hand against the cool glass. She forcefully pulls back the strings of her power from reaching, _reaching_ , into Steve and T’Challa’s minds. Her power resists, drawn to their raw emotions that are begging, shouting, for her attention. She screws her eyes shut in concentration.

 _Stop!_ Wanda mentally shouts, and, like a rubber band, her mind is abruptly pulled from their conversation. She shakily releases a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Wanda forces her eyes to open to concentrate on a red hex circling her palm. It momentarily distracts her from Steve and T’Challa’s private conversation, giving her enough time to get a reign on her powers again. They are on the other side of the giant complex near the laboratories. _I’ve never read minds that far away before,_ Wanda realizes.  

Her powers have only been increasing since the airport battle, and it’s becoming harder and harder to control. The only time she had ever, even slightly, loosened her grip on her power was when she had crushed Vision under levels of concrete. Vicious and electrifying power had crackled between her fingertips, and it had scared her. She was terrified of what she could do. She was terrified to ever let go again, and she was terrified of the unknowing of what she was now capable of.

Wanda stares at the little scarlet hex above her palm. Wisps of energy escape the centre, but evaporate when they stray too far. _There had been a time when this was the most complex thing I could do_ , Wanda thinks. She had been holding back at the airport battle. She hadn’t wanted to permanently hurt her former teammates. _Look where that got me_ , Wanda thinks bitterly. Her hand ghosts around her throat, where the electric shock collar had been. When Steve had rescued them from the Raft, he couldn’t have gotten the damned thing off soon enough. She had only felt so powerless once in her life, and that was before the experiments. Before Hydra changed her on a genetic level.

It was times like these that she ached for her brother. Pietro would know what to do, even if it were a simple reassuring hand on her shoulder. He had only ever seen Wanda, his little twin sister, not the fearsome, powerful Scarlet Witch. People overlooked Wanda and only ever saw the threat that could topple a city with her mind. It was what Stark saw, it was what General Ross saw, and it was what the world saw. _But not Steve_ , a small voice echoes in her head. Steve understood what it was like to be only referred to as his alter ego. He understood what it felt like to be changed on a fundamental level, changed so far that it was hard to recognise even yourself. People had assumed that Captain America and Steve Rogers could be used interchangeably, but now they knew, just like Wanda had always known. Steve had shown the entire world how far he would go to protect the ones he cared about. Fractioning the Avengers with Stark, something that the public’s opinion of Captain America would never do, only proved this. Steve understood. He _understood_.

Wanda lets the little hex evaporate from her palm and turns away from the window. Her room, generously supplied by T’Challa, is bare. The white bed and wallpaper gives it a clinical, cold edge and Wanda hates it. But she can’t complain, can never complain, because without T’Challa’s generosity, the remnants of their team would be running across the globe, always looking over their shoulders. After their escape from the Raft, Clint and Scott went to Clint’s farm to stay low and off the radar. Wanda had been half-tempted to go with them, but had opted to stay with Sam, Bucky and Steve to travel to Wakanda. She hopes to help T’Challa and the Wakandan people in any way she can. Grief still consumes her after she had inadvertently killed eleven Wakandans in Lagos over a month ago. A knock at her door interrupts Wanda from her reverie.

“Hey,” Sam says, his head sticking through the doorway. “Thought you might like to join me for a cup of coffee?”

Wanda smiles wanly at him. “I could go for some tea, actually,” she says.

Sam makes a face and opens the door to let her through. “The weak man’s coffee,” he jokes.

“It’s a good thing I’m not a man, then,” Wanda laughs and Sam rolls his eyes.

“This way, your majesty,” Sam mockingly bows, and Wanda playfully nudges him.

Sam leads her to the complex’s common room. Light filters in through the floor to ceiling windows and casts shadows on the modernistic, black and white living room chairs. The giant grey rug is soft on her socked feet. Wanda searches for mugs in the kitchenette’s drawers as Sam starts boiling the water.

“Would you like English Breakfast or something fruitier? Pomegranate? Cherry? Strawberry?” Sam grins at Wanda and quickly ducks his head at her well-aimed dish towel. He holds out his hands, one holding English Breakfast and the other holding strawberry. Wanda snatches the English Breakfast teabag from his grasp with a glare. Sam begins to chuckle but fails to miss Wanda’s second well-aimed dish towel to his face.

They make the rest of their drinks in companionable silence and walk over to the chairs. Wanda curls her socked feet underneath her and warms her cold hands on the mug. Sam takes a long sip of his coffee, and then looks over at her.

“You know, I don’t think I ever actually thanked you for having our back,” he says, a sad smile ghosting over his lips.

Wanda looks down and stares at her tea. “It was nothing,” she says quietly.

A line appears between Sam’s eyebrows. He leans forward and places his elbows on his knees and regards her carefully. “It was definitely not nothing,” he says plainly. “Without you, Steve and Bucky would have never been able to catch Zemo in Siberia. You held up a crumbling tower so they could escape. You were willing to sacrifice your freedom so they could do it. That isn’t nothing.”

Wanda looks up and meets his eyes. She smiles half-heartedly, and sips from her mug. She isn’t a hero, has never been a hero, in her mind. Sam’s gaze focuses on the forest outside the window and he takes a swig of coffee. He sighs and sets it down on the table in front of them.

“The Raft was hard on all of us, but it was hardest for you. I can’t imagine what it must have been like. But I’m here if you need me. Me and Steve both are. You know that, right?” Sam asks. His gaze feels heavy on Wanda’s shoulders.

“Thank you, Sam,” Wanda says quietly. “And what I did for you and Steve, I know that you’d do the same for me.”

Sam smiles lopsidedly and knocks his knee against hers. “You’re damn right we would,” he says.

Wanda smiles and takes another sip. Before either of them say anything else, Steve walks into the common area. His eyes are distant and haunted, and Wanda knows, without reading his mind, that Steve’s thoughts still linger on Bucky.

“Hey man,” Sam says. “Do you want some coffee? I just made a fresh pot.”

Steve looks over at them, and smiles faintly. It doesn’t reach his eyes, but Wanda knows that Sam will appreciate the effort.

“Have they got any tea, actually?” Steve asks.

Sam’s shoulders slump and he turns to Wanda. He makes a face of mock disgust and quirks an eyebrow, as if to ask _are you behind this?_ Wanda can’t smother her own smile and tries to disguise it by taking another sip. Steve’s eyes flicker between them, confused, but his smile turns the faintest bit genuine.

“Well,” Sam says, making a show of getting out of his chair, “it looks like I’m surrounded by tea-drinking traitors.”

Wanda can’t help but laugh. “Has anyone ever told you how much of a drama queen you are?”

Sam, behind the kitchenette’s counter, throws Wanda a dirty look over his shoulder. Steve steals Sam’s vacated seat beside Wanda.

“Did I ever tell you about the time he ranted for five minutes about his uniform being called a ‘bird-costume’?” Steve asks, grinning.

Wanda turns towards Sam and begins to laugh so hard she nearly spills some of her tea. Sam squawks indignantly behind them.

“First of all, ‘costume’? My wings are not made of cheap plastic and cardboard from someone’s backyard!” Wanda can’t help but laugh harder at Sam and –

- _god, she’s beautiful, I haven’t seen her this happy in days-_

Sam still rants heatedly behind them, but Wanda’s eyes trail slowly over to look at Steve. He’s smiling softly at her and his expression is unguarded. Their eyes lock and she knows she should look away but she can’t, she can’t, she can’t –

“-and it was just plain disrespectful to the engineers as well! I’ve saved Steve’s ass too many times to be wearing a ‘costume’!” Sam shoves the tea into Steve’s hands, unaware of the _something_ that just happened.

Steve looks away first, his cheeks coloring ever so slightly, and stares at the tea in his hands. Wanda focuses on Sam and grins, pretending to listen to his never-ending rant. Her mind is going a mile a minute, but instead of focusing on it, she takes a sip of tea.

* * *

 

Wanda walks alone down abandoned corridors in the complex. It’s 3am, but she can’t sleep. This isn’t unusual, but Wanda’s discovered that walking aimlessly generally helps clear her mind of that night’s terrors.

Tonight, she felt Pietro die again. She remembered it as if it were yesterday. She had been fighting so many Ultron robots that she hadn’t realized at first. She hadn’t realized that the mental link that bonded them together had snapped. She couldn’t look into Pietro’s mind, as easy as reading a book, because there was a blank nothingness instead. She hadn’t understood at first, but then grief had overtaken her body. She couldn’t control her outburst, didn’t even try to. Wanda had never been without her brother, and she had felt so, so alone for the first time in her life. He died over a year ago and Wanda’s hated each day since. Her nightmares about Pietro’s death are becoming more and more frequent and –

- _I should have done more, I should’ve looked for you in the snow, this would never have happened if I had only looked out for you like you always looked out for me, I’m so sorry, Buck, I’m so sorry-_

Wanda stops in her tracks as she hears Steve’s chaotic thoughts. She looks down a dark corridor and sees a sliver of light escape from a partially-closed door. _I should leave him alone_ , a voice whispers in her head. Wanda starts to turn away down the corridor she came, but something stops her. She looks over her shoulder at the light, and something in her chest tugs her towards it. Wanda peers inside to see Steve standing over Bucky’s sleeping body, silent tears carving tracks down his face. His hands are in his pockets, and he doesn’t wipe away his tears. Wanda is overcome by the desire to leave, just leave, but fights it. She opens the door slowly and Steve looks up, alarmed and panicked, before realizing that it is just her.

“Wanda,” Steve says, his voice hoarse. He begins to jerkily wipe away his tears. “Sorry, I was just-”

“Steve,” Wanda interrupts. He had begun to turn away to hide his tears, but he looks over at her with puffy, red eyes. They just look at each other for a few seconds, and then Wanda walks towards him and wraps her arms around him. Steve is stiff in her arms, and Wanda fears she’s made a terrible mistake, before he crushes her to his body. Steve buries his face in her neck and she feels his body shudder with new, silent sobs. Wanda’s practically on her tiptoes as she holds him, and she begins to murmur reassurances in his ear. “Shh, Steve, it’s okay, you’re okay,” she whispers.

They stay like that for what feels like hours, but must only be minutes. Slowly, Steve disentangles himself from Wanda and gives her a wan smile.

“Sorry about that,” he begins.

“Steve, stop,” Wanda interrupts him for the second time. “Never apologise for your feelings. Please don’t try and hide this from anyone, least of all from me.”

Steve bows his head and looks up at her through his eyelashes. He nods mutely and Wanda takes his hand. She leads him over to an empty table nearby and sits on top of it. Steve follows her and they sit like that for a few minutes, their fingers still intertwined. Wanda looks over at Bucky’s frozen body and holds Steve’s hand the slightest bit tighter.

“He’s dreaming of you,” she whispers.

Steve looks over sharply, his eyes searching hers. Wanda closes her eyes and focuses on Bucky’s mind and –

- _god, Steve is such a dead hoofer, look at him dancing with Shellie, it’ll be a miracle if she goes home without bruises paintin’ her feet, Steve’s looking real happy at least_ -

Wanda smiles playfully and looks over at Steve.

“You were a really bad dancer,” Wanda laughs.

Steve’s expression, which had been hopeful, changes and he scowls at her. Wanda laughs harder and squeezes his hand. Steve looks a bit happier after that, at least.

“Of all the things he could be dreaming, of course it would have to be that,” Steve mutters.

“Shellie O’Donald didn’t seem to mind, though,” Wanda grins.

Steve smiles lopsidedly over at her. “I was quite the lady killer, I’ll have you know.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” Wanda laughs, remembering his bony elbows and frail body from Bucky’s dreams. He would’ve caught her attention, no matter which body he had. He was Steve. How could he not?

Steve smiles softly at her, much like he had the previous day. Wanda leans her head against his shoulder and they fall into a companionable silence.

“What are you doing up so early?” Steve asks innocently.

Wanda’s smile falters and she looks through her eyelashes up at Steve.

“Nightmares. Again. This time about Pietro,” she whispers.

Steve, not knowing what to say, lets go of her hand and wraps it around her shoulders. His other hand searches for hers and grasps it tightly. Wanda’s head rests against his chest and Steve’s cheek settles against her hair.

“Your brother will wake up one day, Steve,” Wanda whispers into his chest. A single tear slides down her cheek, staining his t-shirt. Steve begins to rock her gently and Wanda lets a few more tears drop.

“Tell me about the 40s, Steve,” Wanda murmurs after a few minutes. She looks up at him, undoubtedly through bloodshot eyes, but he just smiles softly at her.

“Well, I was sick about every second day, and every day between that I was in the process of getting sick,” Steve chuckles.

They stay like that for a few hours, Steve telling her funny old war stories, or about his mom, or about Bucky, and Wanda loses herself in his memories.

* * *

 

Sam takes another look at his watch. 9am. Huh. Normally Steve is ‘up and at em’ by 6am and rubbing in the fact that he overlapped Sam jogging four times by now. He didn’t even turn up for his morning jog, but Sam’s going to let it slide. It’s been a rough week. Maybe he can finally rub something in Steve’s face for once.

Sam takes another swig of coffee and then Wanda enters the common area. She looks tired but happy. She greets him and gets to making a cup of tea. Sam goes back to playing Galaga on the iPad T’Challa gave him when Steve walks in. Sam’s about to finally start rubbing it in his face when he sees Steve blush slightly while looking at Wanda. She gives him the second cup of tea that she prepared and smiles shyly up at him. Steve rubs the back of his neck, grinning, while she walks away to sit in her chair.

Sam looks between them, and smiles into his mug of coffee. Even though coffee is definitely better, tea actually isn’t all that bad.

_FIN_

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first thing I've written in like 3 years, so be gentle pls. This was unbeta'd so all mistakes are mine whoops.  
> I've been reading a lot of Steve/Wanda recently and I wanted to put my own spin on things. I ship everyone with Wanda bc I love my baby and she deserves to be loved too.  
> Also I'm Australian and I tried to go for American spelling and it nearly killed me.  
> A kudos a day keeps the doctor away ♡♡♡


End file.
